Minutes - 23 April 2018 - Annual Parish Meeting
DRAFT MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL PARISH MEETING HELD ON MONDAY 23 APRIL 2018 AT 7.00PM IN THE LARGE HALL, THE OLD SCHOOL, NETTLEHAM
The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting and commenced with the presentation of the 2018 Ray Sellars Community Award to someone who had worked over and above the call of duty on key activities in the village, namely, Mr Brian Burkitt, for all his hard work as a member and Treasurer of the Village Hall Committee and for his work on the organisation of Nettleham Carnival for many years.
Mark Sellars, Ray’s son, presented Brian Burkitt with the Ray Sellars Community Award Shield. The large shield would be held in the display cabinet in the Large Hall at the Old School and a small shield was presented to Brian to keep.
Brian Burkitt thanked everyone and stated that it was Ray Sellars who had got him involved with the Village Hall Committee originally.
Cllr Siddall reported that he had recently attended the annual twinning visit to Mulsanne in France and had been presented by the Mayor of Mulsanne with picture 1978 Le Mans road race. The picture was shown to everyone present at the meeting. The picture will be framed and placed in either the Large or Small Halls at the Old School.
01/18. To approve the minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held on 25 April 2017
It was unanimously resolved to approve the Minutes of the 25 April 2017 Annual Parish Council meeting and be signed as a true record of the meeting.
02/18. Matters arising from these minutes - None.
03/18. To receive chairmans report on Parish Council activities undertaken in the last year (1 April to 31 March 2018)
Cllr Evans Chairman’s Report had been circulated at the meeting and had been displayed on the Parish Council website and on various Village Facebook sites. A copy would also be included in the next edition of Nettleham Matters and uploaded on Nettleham News Online site. The key items were the substantial improvements to the Village Hall Car Park which had been totally resurfaced, the drains replaced and new planting areas created. The Village Hall Refurbishment Working Group were still working on other items. Cllr Evans wished to thank the Working Group for a job well done.
The Parish Council had recruited a new Village Handyperson and Facilities Assistant to assist with management and maintenance of the Parish Council’s facilities and the monitoring of various contractors including grass cutting over which there had been some issues that had required checking.
A new development on Deepdale Lane was under construction which was one of the sites identified in the Nettleham Neighbourhood Plan (NNP) and would include care facilities for the elderly that would be built by LACE. Also residents would recall that a few years ago that the Nettleham Neighbourhood Plan was used as a Planning Material Consideration to resist a planning appeal of a development for 200 dwellings on land off Larch Avenue which could potentially have been granted had it not been for the NNP.
The first Nettleham Festive Market was held last year with 40 stalls and was a wonderful event which had been very well organised and excellently run. It is anticipated that the event will be even better this year with more stalls and the few problems experienced in the first year would be sorted for this year.
Finally, plenty of other exciting things to come in the future including the revamp of the Nettleham Neighbourhood Plan in 5 years’ time and lots of other things coming up. In 2019 the Parish Council elections will be held and if anyone was interested in becoming a Parish Councillor or had time available to become a member of various working groups then please contact the Parish Office for further details. The Parish Council is not party political, basically just people who would like to make a difference in the community. The Parish Council will be producing information over the next 12 months via various media sources.
04/18. Presentation by Mr Nick Chambers, Chief Executive of LACE outlinng the plans for the new LACE facility to be built on Deepdale Lane
The Chairman welcomed Mr Nick Chambers to the meeting. Mr Chambers was going to do a PowerPoint presentation but the projector was not working. Mr Chambers had also agreed to meet with residents after his presentation in the Meeting Room to discuss the new facilities further
Mr Chambers, Chief Executive of LACE gave an insight into the development on land off Deepdale Lane. He explained the role of housing associations and LACE housing association and the huge drive for housing from the Government for 300,000 new dwellings with a number of stakeholders involved. LACE has been involved with housing in Nettleham for 55 years. The LACE facilities on the Deepdale Lane development would provide the affordable housing element with 22 apartments with communal areas available on an affordable rental basis and 14 two bedroom bungalows available on shared ownership. It was anticipated that the development would commence on site in June 2018 and completion in September 2019 The Lindum Group would be building the facilities and they had been fully engaged in the consultant events and a representative of Lindum Group was present at the meeting and would take part in the discussion following the presentation.
They had engaged with other voluntary groups. The rents on the apartments had been agreed with WLDC and were at an affordable level. Shared ownership was also being included at 75% of the open market value thereby releasing capital. An Aerial view was displayed which illustrated a public footpath. Also displayed were plans showing design of site, detailed floor plans of apartments and bungalows and a visual of how the site would look on completion. Anyone interested in the properties to speak to LACE directly. Choice based letting system would be via WLDC but LACE would be involved in the decision making.
There were 4 levels of housing - Apartments would be levels 2 or 3 which would be for tenants who would need support but would remain independent, however, care could be provided. The development was designed for older people and would cost £4.8 million; with £1.4 million from the Government.
Mr Chambers concluded that he hoped the presentation had been useful. He also offered to give a presentation to any voluntary groups.
The Chairman thanked Mr Chambers for his attendance at the meeting and for his very interesting and informative presentation. Residents in attendance at the meeting were given the opportunity to join Mr Chambers in the Meeting Room to discuss the development further.
05/18. Presentation by Cllr Richard Davies, Portfolio holder for LCC Highways Committee to discuss highways matters affecting Nettleham and countrywide
The Chairman welcomed the second guest speaker, Cllr Richard Davies, the Portfolio holder for the Lincs County Council Highways Committee.
Cllr Richard Davies thanked the Parish Council for asking him to give a presentation to the Annual Parish meeting. He remembered Cllr Ray Sellars from when he first became a Councillor. He was aware that the major problems the county is suffering are potholes, lack of traffic wardens and slow Wi-Fi.
He found his role as a County Councillor incredibly rewarding and he represented Grantham. There were 70 Councillors covering Lincolnshire with a strong leader model and dealt with health, adult care, etc. He was responsible for highways and transport and in the broader context was one of the three largest network of roads in the country, however, there were no trunk roads in Lincolnshire; mainly smaller B and C roads and no motorways. The challenge was that the funding from the Government had been halved and £300,000 million was needed to bring roads to a satisfactory standard by the end of the decade. Lincs County Council could not continue to spend money on non-essential services such as grass cutting and street lighting and had reduced the number of employees and Councillors so that £40,000 million could be allocated to roads. The cost of getting roads up to national standard would cost £300,000 million and current LCC budget is £40,000 million. The standard answer for resurfacing of road etc would be no.
Cllr Davies reported that residents may query why LCC were repairing roads that they did not think needed repairing, however, this was a preventative measure. This decision had been made due to limited budget which would prevent roads from getting too bad. Some roads were so bad and the cost to re-surface was excessive. Also climate change effects were being seen in the county. A big change LCC was introducing was a self-help model publishing all maps online which would detail Highways works 12-24 months in the future and would hopefully go to 3 years ahead.
Planning comments made by LCC followed the National Planning Policy Framework and unless severe 30-40% capacity on developments etc was demonstrated they could not object to it. LCC could not claim back on damage to smaller roads.
In the near future LCC had a dedicated grant for bypasses. Forward planning included replacing A46 thin surface dressing as vast stretches were coming away. £4 million extra funding had been received from the Government and would be dedicated to replacing thin road surfacing.
Cllr Davies then took questions from residents including:-
The re-surfacing of Scothern Road which had originally been promised by Cllr Sellars in 2011 and subsequently not done. The road was now in desperate need of re-surfacing. Cllr Davies stated he was aware of the condition of the road which now required to be re-constructed and re-surfaced to make it safe.
A resident stated that he was a retired Highway Engineer and LCC were in an impossible position and the figure he felt needed to repair Nettleham’s roads/footpaths was in the region of £1million. The cuts made by Central Government meant LCC now had to manage this decline. The majority of the smaller roads were untrafficable. LCC needed 5-6 times their current income to just stay still. LCC were managing decline and the cold weather had highlighted fragility of road construction in the County. National road issues needed to be looked at – no real infrastructure to replace roads. Now putting in bypasses etc but potholes not interesting to Central Government. Adult social care also extremely high. National level politicians needed to look at these issues. It was recommended that LCC put pressure on Central Government. Cllr Davies stated that the average Central Government funding for Lincs was less than rest of country -.£160 million more. LCC had started a Fairer Funding campaign which had been taken to Central Government. If the Fairer Funding scheme was put in place only one County Council would see a reduction in their budget which was Surrey where a lot of MPs lived.
A resident suggested looking at using different types of road materials for example in Scotland they have used recycled plastic. Cllr Davies responded that this type of road material did not respond well to changes in temperature; basically LCC needed more money to get roads up to the National Standard.
A resident raised the question of why spend money filling potholes one week and the following week the road was resurfaced; and why fill potholes when road surface was wet. Cllr Davies stated that LCC’s criteria was that any potholes of 40mm or more were repaired within 24 hours. LCC were trying to resurface as many potholes as possible with 26 crews who try to blow out dry wet potholes and needed to fill potholes to stop an accident; the initial repair was on safety grounds and seen as a temporary repair.
Cllr Davies explained how to report potholes by going to LCC website and completing the online report and the website would provide an update, but there were a few bugs in website system but they were working on this.
The Chairman thanked Cllr Richard Davies for taking the time to come to the meeting and give an interesting and informative presentation.
06/18. To recieve the Responsible Financial Officers report for 2017/18 financial year
The Responsible Financial Officer outlined the 2017/18 financial report.
07/18. To consider any points which any parishioner may wish to raise
A resident raised issues with associated works during the gas works undertaken by Cadent including the slurry cover to footpaths, reseeding of grass verges and encroachment onto footpaths. The Clerk to contact Cadent about the items raised.
The Chairman closed the meeting by thanking everyone for attending and the guest speakers for giving informative presentations. Meeting closed at 8.05pm